Tuesday, January 20, 2015

An Index of Guest Posts from Authors of 2014 Short Story Collections

Hit parade: Antonya Nelson (top),
Ben Marcus, and Hilary Mantel

In 2014, we once again invited each author of a collection we received as an entry for The Story Prize to contribute a guest post to this blog. Out of 125 authors, 71 chose to participate.* Since 2010, the TSP blog has featured 337 guest posts from 328 writers.

When we ask the authors if they'd like to contribute, we give them several options. One is to answer any or all of a series of questions, which we change somewhat each year. The 2014 questions were:

If you weren't a writer, what would you be doing?

Describe an unusual writing habit of yours.

Do you ever borrow characters or situations from real life, and has anyone ever confronted you about it, been angry or pleased?

What's the worst idea for a story you've every had?

What's the best story idea you've had that you've never been able to write to your satisfaction?

What one story that someone else has written do you wish you had written?

Where do you do most of your work?

What do you do when you're stuck or have "writer's block"?

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

What else (beyond books and writing) informs or inspires your work?

We also suggest some possible topics:

A literary touchstone (e.g., a book or books you have reread many times and return to often).

An aspect of craft you struggled to learn, and how you learned it.

Your publishing experience.

A letter to a young writer, a la Rilke.

A list of ten pieces of writing advice.

The last topic was a popular one this year, with about a dozen authors offering their advice. Contributors also, of course, had the option of coming up with their own ideas.

This index is in alphabetical order by last name, with author names linking to their book on IndieBound (unless a book wasn't available on that site) and the rest of the guest post titles linking to the posts themselves.

* Whether or not someone contributes a post has nothing to do with the books we choose as finalists or for our long-list. We received 129 books, but some authors published more than one this year. One 2014 contributor to TSP, Jacob M. Appel, published two short story collections in 2014, but we only invite each author to contribute to the blog one time in any year. Appel's other book is Einstein's Beach House (Pressgang).

About The Story Prize and this blog

The TSP blog features guest posts from authors whose books have been entered for The Story Prize (an annual book award for short story collections), along with news about the prize and coverage of our annual event.

The finalists for books published in 2018 are A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley, Your Duck Is My Duck by Deborah Eisenberg, and Florida by Lauren Groff. The authors will read and discuss their work at an event at The New School on March 6. At the culmination of the event, we will announce the winner. Tickets are $14.

2019 submission deadlines are July 15 for books published Jan.-June, and Nov. 15 for books published July-Dec.

About Me

I've been been the Director of The Story Prize since Founder Julie
Lindsey and I initiated this annual award for books of short fiction in
2004. Before that, I was series editor for six volumes of The O. Henry
Awards (1997-2002) and edited four other anthologies.